A recent poll found two-thirds of Americans have difficulty coming up with $1,000 in an emergency. How many of us acknowledge our financial woes to our relatives, friends and neighbors? While sex, politics and religion are considered taboo subjects in polite conversation, money is so taboo it doesn’t even make the list.

I brought it up among friends, and a couple brave souls responded. One octogenarian confessed he had, years earlier, taken out a reverse mortgage. Since he no longer has enough equity to qualify for a loan, he now has one less emergency resource. A septuagenarian shared that a catastrophic illness and $100,000 hospital bill had forced him back into the workforce.